Good Fortune: The Cat Who Went to Heaven
Aug. 3rd, 2012 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

I was poking about at new items for the coming WoW expansion, and I came across one called Good Fortune. That stopped me in my tracks, sending my mind back to this book. The Cat Who Went to Heaven. Thinking further about it, I think this was the start of my Major Issues with religion.
If you haven't read it (and you really should), it's a children's book about a poor painter in Japan. While he has no money for food for himself, a cat (named Good Fortune) becomes part of his household. The painter comes to love her.
The local Buddhist temple hires the painter to do a picture of the dying Buddha with the animals of the world come to pay their respects. He has to leave cats out of it, because "cats are cursed, because of their pride and sense of superiority, which caused them to refuse to bow before the Buddha in his lifetime".
But the painter loves his cat and she's heartbroken because there's no cat in the painting. In the end, he adds a small cat in the corner of the painting, even knowing that doing so may make the temple reject his panting and thus make him die of hunger. Upon seeing the cat has been added, Good Fortune dies "of happiness".
And the temple does reject the painting. The painter is in disgrace. Starving. But then, miracle! The painting has magically changed! The dying Buddha is now extending his hand to the cat, blessing it!
Writing all this up, dabbing tears from my eyes, I see this is likely the start of my issues with kitties dying, too. :P
On one hand, someone commissioning art can request anything they want. "Draw me a picture with every animal in the world BUT NO CATS" is a valid request. But "...BUT NO CATS BECAUSE THEY'RE CURSED AND EVIL AND WON'T BOW DOWN TO OUR GOD" is a different story.
But more than that, it bothers me that cats would be thought of that way. (And it's not just in Buddhism, how many black cats are killed around Halloween because they're "witches" and "evil"?)
The whole book just made me so sad for so many reasons. Why do religions need to hate? Exclude? Groups of people, kinds of animals?
...And why did the cat have to die in the story? *sniffles*
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 08:27 pm (UTC)I'd argue it's a human thing, not so much a religious thing.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 08:50 pm (UTC)As for cats and Halloween, as of last year, the ASPCA has recommended that people keep their black cats especially, but all cats, inside over Halloween (I got a mailing about it). Snopes has a writeup of some Halloween cat issues, various religions and non-religious both (http://www.snopes.com/horrors/mayhem/blackcat.asp).
When I was a kid, the people who lived across the street from me were very religious (Born Again Christians). They refused to celebrate Halloween and they thought all cats were of the devil/demons.
It's likely both.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 09:36 pm (UTC)We're going to have to agree to disagree re: the nature of religion, I think. I can get where you're coming from, though!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-04 12:52 am (UTC)Some sects of Buddhism deal with an idea that has been known to be translated as 'Heaven' by Westerners, and considering the audience Coatsworth was marketing to at the time I would not be surprised if some of the story was adjusted to make it easier for Western children unfamiliar with the Buddhist tradition to understand.
But anyhoo regardless of the story's roots the same message remains (and it's not that Buddhists hate cats).
no subject
Date: 2012-08-04 02:43 am (UTC)What it comes down to is that-- as good as the story is-- she either changed it to the point where it no longer resembles the original myth in the interests of domestic consumption, or she created the folktale.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-04 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 08:41 pm (UTC)I do agree that too many religions exclude and hate, but much of that is due to the people in the organizations, not the actual religion.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 08:51 pm (UTC)but much of that is due to the people in the organizations, not the actual religion
Agreed. And it makes me sad.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 09:11 pm (UTC)Some people are all over 'I died for your sins' but forget about 'Love thy neighbour' being 'not just the people just like me'. And that's before you get into all sorts of other thorny issues about people picking and choosing which bits of their religion they want to follow.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 09:43 pm (UTC)That's a really food way of phrasing it.
To your whole comment: Yeah. All that crap with Chick-fil-A yesterday, all I could think about was the whole "love your neighbor" and "Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged" type things.
I'm not a Bible expert, but didn't Jesus love everyone? "Love the sinner, hate the sin"?
The whole thing makes me sad.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-04 05:46 am (UTC)Seems legit. Although I don't think it's a sense of superiority so much as it is that they are just superior. I mean hell they get us to clean up their poop for them and have us sitting there wiggling a piece of string for hours on end. We are simply playthings to them.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-05 07:24 pm (UTC)But, assuming there is an afterlife at all, if there aren't cats there, it will be a lesser place.